We all have a role in creating safer communities for children and young people, writes Dr Becky Shelley and Dr Mike Guerzoni
It has been made clear to us in recent years that child sexual abuse and its prevention is the uncomfortable conversation we need to have as a society, as well as within the organisations and community groups within which we work and live.
Inquiries undertaken in Australia, and internationally, have evidenced how all too often the signs of child sexual abuse have been missed by people who didn’t have the knowledge to respond properly, didn’t feel they had the authority to raise concerns, or worse still, the signs have been dismissed by people to protect the reputation of organisations.
Consequently, authorities were not informed, criminal concerns were not acted on, and many people did not receive justice.
Royal Commission findings
In Australia, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a Commonwealth-level inquiry, has been seen as integral in raising societal awareness about this type of crime, bringing opportunities to survivors and their families for being heard, the consolidation of research, legislative changes, and enabling matters to be referred to police for investigation.
It also emphasised that it is the shared responsibility, of all people, to protect the most precious and vulnerable in our community.
Not just those in positions of authority.
Since the conclusion of the Royal Commission, our partners in government and the broader community have been taking important steps to address this situation with a suite of initiatives.
A prominent and important example is the State Government’s recently passed Child and Youth Safe Organisations Framework, which will set clear expectations about child safety for Tasmanian organisations from 2024.
University of Tasmania courses
Adding to this broader suite of initiatives, the Peter Underwood Centre has worked with a wider group of University of Tasmania researchers and staff (including Professor Jeremy Prichard, Professor Karen Martin, Dr Vicky Nagy, Melody West, Dr Megan Lang, and Ms Beale Gurney) to develop two free evidence-informed courses on child rights and child safety to equip people with the skills and awareness to keep children safe.
In order to ensure that the safeguarding of children is everyone’s responsibility, research informs us that people require the knowledge and training to be aware of the signs of maltreatment, and to know how to respond.
The first course, Introduction to Children’s Rights and Safety, which is framed by Royal Commission emphasis that children and young people participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously.
We can all contribute to a cultural change which improves communication with children and allows them to meaningfully contribute.
The second course, Child Safety: Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention, supports participants to:
- recognise the importance of preventing and addressing child and young person abuse;
- identify risk factors and misconceptions about child and young person abuse, offenders, and patterns of offending; and
- identify steps individuals and organisations can take to create a child-friendly culture and child-safe environment.
Developing a conscious awareness of grooming, abuse and neglect are important dimensions in crime prevention.
We believe that the courses are relevant for everyone, ranging from leaders of large organisations to volunteers at sports clubs and parents.
Indeed, all members of the community who interact with children.
In other words, pretty much everyone.
In Tasmania, this sentiment of collective responsibility is enshrined within the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1997 (Tas).
The courses are online – the first course takes approximately one hour to complete and the second about 90 minutes – and can be found on the University of Tasmania short course platform here:
You can choose to participate in research questions embedded within the courses, which are designed to establish whether, across the broader community, we are developing a greater awareness of these matters.
In the Western world we experience cycles in which awareness of abuse and efforts to prevent abuse are prioritised, but then our attention moves onto other crimes and social concerns.
It is important, therefore, that the safeguarding children is constantly on the public radar, and by extension, it needs to be a process that everyone is involved in.
Dr Becky Shelley is the deputy director aspirations and attainment at the Peter Underwood Centre, University of Tasmania.
Dr Mike Guerzoni is a criminologist at the School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania.
This article was published as a Talking Point in the Mercury newspaper on July 12, 2023